990 Mr Beke on the Clussijicution ()f' Languages, 



races were subjected had caused their extinction (a I'esult which 

 there is good reason to believe has in many instances taken 

 place) ; whilst in more genial climates, where the spontaneous 

 productions of nature were sufficient for the support of mankind, 

 the absence of motives for exertion would lead to the total de- 

 clension of their debased inhabitants, so that at length they 

 would become almost assimilated with the brute creation. 



The hypothesis which is thus advocated removes very many 

 of the difficulties which, under the opposite one, have attended 

 the consideration of primeval history ; and it more especially ac- 

 counts for the existence, in the earliest ages, of nations whose 

 civilization and power, even allowing to them the utmost preco- 

 city, were always incompatible with what was conceived to have 

 been at the same periods the state of society generally. 



A still more important result is, that we have affiarded to us 

 a satisfactory means of explaining the existence of the various 

 diversities in the human species; which diversities, so far from 

 being referrible to any permanent distinctive characters, or even 

 to the action of climate and other physical causes alone, must 

 principally be derived from the operation of changes in the mo- 

 ral and intellectual state of the various races. Indeed, it must 

 never be lost sight of, that man is a reasonable being, and not a 

 mere animal ; and that consequently it is absolutely necessary, 

 in all investigations of his natural history, to consider him not 

 ■physically only, but also psychologically. 



Upon the hypothesis, then, that the origin of the numerous 

 and widely differing races of man, is to be referred to a single 

 parent stock possessed of a high degree of cultivation, the fol- 

 lowing principle presents itself, namely, That (allowing for cir- 

 cumstances by which the progress of deterioration may have 

 been accelerated or retarded, or otherwise modified,) the culture 

 or the degradation of an aboriginal race * will be in proportion 

 to the geographical distance of its residence from the common 

 centre of dispersion. For example, if we take the primitive re- 

 sidence of the post-diluvian race to have been in the north- 

 western portion of Mesopotamia — the reasons for which location 



* By the term " aboriginal race" is simply meant the people who were the 

 earliest inhabitants of anv country. 



